All Chapters of Beneath His Ice: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I didn't see Killian for the rest of the morning.He hadn't messaged. Hadn't summoned me through the sleek intercom system that connected his office to my desk. Hadn't so much as glanced in my direction when he passed by during the department meeting an hour later, moving through the conference room like a shadow—untouchable, unreadable—surrounded by an invisible force field that no one dared breach.And I hated how much I noticed. How my eyes tracked his movement without conscious permission. How I registered the precise angle of his shoulders beneath his suit jacket, the slight tension in his jaw that hadn't been there earlier, the way he kept his right hand in his pocket as he listened to the quarterly projections.The rest of the morning passed in a blur of concentrated effort. I threw myself into damage control with the kind of focused intensity that had gotten me through college while working full-time, that had secured me this position at ValeCorp when there had been hundreds o

Wednesday came. He didn't say a word to me until nearly noon. I was organizing the client database when his voice came through the intercom. "Conference Room A. Ten minutes." No explanation. Just a location and a countdown. I stood, adjusted my blazer, and made my way to the conference room without allowing myself to feel anything about it. He was already seated when I arrived, a stack of papers in front of him and two board members I vaguely recognized from last quarter's budget meeting. They barely acknowledged me as I took the empty seat to Killian's left. He didn't look at me. "Quinn," he said, eyes on the document. "Take the minutes." "Yes, sir." He didn't blink at the formality. Good. That was the point. The meeting lasted forty-seven minutes. I spoke once—to clarify a logistics question. He didn't correct me. Didn't compliment me either. Just kept moving like I was a piece on a board he'd already planned twenty moves ahead. When the meeting ended, I closed my note

Saturday morning arrived with golden light spilling across the faded hardwood floor like honey, illuminating dust motes that danced in the air with the kind of careless joy I'd forgotten was possible. The blessed absence of an alarm meant I woke up slowly, naturally, my body finally allowed to follow its own rhythm instead of the relentless march of corporate scheduling. I slept in. Not accidentally—not because I'd forgotten to set my alarm or because my phone had died—but intentionally. Deliberately. With the kind of luxurious disregard for productivity that would have horrified my work self but filled my weekend self with something that felt suspiciously like contentment. Deliciously, beautifully, unapologetically. I woke up to birds outside the window and the gentle hum of the city just beginning to stir. Weekend traffic moved at a different pace, less urgent, more forgiving. Even the air felt different, softer somehow, as if the atmosphere itself had decided to take a day o

The makeover started with my hair, and Layla approached it with the focus of an artist approaching a blank canvas.She had me sit on the floor in front of the full-length mirror, my legs crossed and my back straight, while she worked with her arsenal of tools like a woman on a mission. The implements were spread across my dresser like surgical instruments: curling irons in three different sizes, brushes that looked more expensive than my rent, products in sleek bottles that promised transformation with names like "Texture Spray" and "Heat Protectant" and "Miracle Shine.""Hold still," she murmured, sectioning my hair with the kind of precision that suggested she'd done this before—probably for other friends, other transformations, other nights when someone needed to remember who they were underneath the weight of their daily lives.She started at the back, lifting sections of my hair and wrapping them around the barrel of the curling iron. The heat warmed my scalp, and I could smell t

Inside the club was another world entirely.Not the kind of world you wandered into by accident, but the kind you had to earn your way into through connections or wealth or, apparently, strategic flirtation with men who held unspoken power over velvet ropes.The ceilings were high—vaulted and arched like the inside of a cathedral, but painted in sleek obsidian and gold that caught the light from dozens of sources and threw it back in warm, shifting patterns. Enormous chandeliers hung low enough to cast intimate pools of illumination across crystal tables that probably cost more than my monthly rent. Every bottle behind the bar glimmered like treasure, their labels bearing names I recognized from magazines but had never dreamed of tasting. There were no plastic cups anywhere in sight, no sticky floors that grabbed at your shoes with every step. The women were dressed in designer labels and walked like they'd never known discomfort, their posture speaking of yoga classes and personal tr